The GBA shares the highlights of Books for Every Child: International Literacy Day Event Celebration 2024
Join the Global Book Alliance for the launch of its Open Book Partner Series with the first of two webinars that discuss the importance of literacy as a transformative experience for girls around the world. Please join us for this important conversation on Wednesday, May 26, from 9:00–10:15 a.m. EDT.
Literacy is the cornerstone of education, but for many children, developing literacy means learning an entirely new language, one they do not speak at home. There are reasons for this: some countries have hundreds of local languages -- making the cost of creating learning materials for all languages high. But Mother tongue-based (MTB) education, teaching children literacy skills in the language they speak at home, has been shown to have benefits which far outweigh the costs.
The Results in Education for All Children (REACH) Trust Fund carried out a project aimed to strengthen the South African publishing industry by 1) raising awareness of the critical need for storybooks to create a habit of reading in children, and 2) increasing the supply of quality storybooks in African languages.
On International Women’s Day, the Global Book Alliance joined government and multilateral organization representatives at the 2021 Annual Commonwealth Day Lecture. The talk, given by founding co-chairs of the International Parliamentary Network for Education, Senator Dr. Getrude Musuruve of Kenya and Harriett Baldwin, Member of Parliament (MP) of the United Kingdom, focused on action to deliver the global promise of quality education for all, and highlighted the importance of girls' education and reading.
The GBA was established in the recognition of the crucial role of books in the development of literacy skills, and the pervasive challenges in ensuring access. Across the globe, as coronavirus cases surge and schools in many countries are either fully or partially closed, access to books is more inequitable than ever.
GBA Steering Committee member All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development (ACR:GCD), has recently announced important progress on one of GBA’s flagship initiatives, the Begin with Books prize, with the contribution of age-appropriate early grade reading content related to Covid-19 to the Global Digital Library.
Panelists at the Global Book Alliance’s recent International Literacy Day webinar focused on the ‘Business of Books’ believe books should be viewed as an essential commodity, a commodity that can support and energize children to thrive in times of crisis and calm. This post discusses how, like other essential commodities, books demand a market-based approach to ensure they are developed to answer the needs of their readers and land safely in their hands.
